


bottomless vales and boundless floods

by eluvion



Series: Dreamland [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, I keep making Loki's problems worse, Insomnia, Mind the Tags, Suicidal Ideation, Suicidal Thoughts, introspecting on a roof, just a warning for if anyone is going to read this, the author is extremely late, the author is extremely thankful for anyone still reading this, the author is unsure if theyre going to finish this, the author straight up went through a gender crisis and still hasnt finished this fic, the author tries to worldbuild
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:49:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,451
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21996286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eluvion/pseuds/eluvion
Summary: Thor and Valkyrie worry about Loki.
Relationships: Brunnhilde | Valkyrie & Loki (Marvel), Brunnhilde | Valkyrie & Thor (Marvel), Loki & Thor (Marvel)
Series: Dreamland [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1522805
Comments: 8
Kudos: 132





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author’s Note: So I wasn’t going to write a sequel but then I was like “I left it on such an open-ended note” and then I wrote another one so we go again. There’s probably going to be more, knowing me.  
>   
> By the way, I’m just going to ignore canon for now and pretend that 1. Loki came alive sometime during/after the final fight with Thanos, 2. Loki is under Thor’s protection and they don’t want to make an enemy of Thor so most people are cool with him being there and everyone else can’t do anything about it, and 3. Thor and Val both rule Asgard but like platonically. And also, Valkyrie has POVs coming up because fuck structure I love her.  
>   
> Ok, so it would also be cool if you guys went to my Tumblr (https://eluvion.tumblr.com/ [AO3 isn’t letting me use html to link bear with me]) and followed or messaged or something. Enjoy and happy holidays =)

When Loki woke up, it felt as if death was still gripping him. He still felt the tightness in his lungs, still felt the burning pain in his chest, still felt like he just couldn’t breathe—

But at least he was awake. Awake, not trapped in his own mind anymore, spinning through the shattered remnants of himself, clinging onto the edges of his mind by fingernails. 

He forced himself to stand on unsteady feet. Loki brought himself to the kitchen and turned on a light. The house in New Asgard was his own; he didn’t have to share with Thor. He wondered, distantly, if his home here, his place here, was an offering of peace of sorts, a sort of tenuous trust given to him like a rope made from silk—as if once he took a hold of it, it would be pulled from him and slip through his grip. It felt, sometimes, as if his life were another rope of silk.

As if as soon as he took a hold of it, claimed it to be his own, he was thrown off course, control yanked away from him. By death, by the Tita—by Thanos, by his own Norns damned thoughts. He wished that he could trust himself to not do anything… drastic. It seemed like he couldn’t trust anything these days.

Thor’s words from a week earlier came back to him at the thought. I wish you would trust me, brother. 

Loki briefly debated going to Thor’s house and waking him. He imagined himself telling Thor, telling him all that had happened, how he had fallen, how Thanos had taken a hold of him, crafted him into the perfect tool, and how even now, when the Titan was nothing but dust, Loki still heard his voice in the dark of night. He imagined telling Thor of death, of dying, of feeling himself cling to the last shreds of light before the breath jerked out of him. He imagined telling his brother of waking up after death, waking up and realizing that no, he didn’t die. Realizing that it didn’t end, though he was so tired.

No. No, he would not go there. He would not force Thor to worry about him.

But he needed something to ground himself. He thought that perhaps pain, perhaps a knife carefully carving somewhere deep down, ripping tendons and nerves free, letting his blood flow in rivers and streams, until death came at last. True death. Not the stops and starts of the last decade, not the tricks of fate eluding what he had wanted three times now. 

But no. Loki had seen what his death had done to Thor for the past five years.

So death was not an option. Neither, Loki reasoned, was injury. He needed a distraction, needed something to convince himself that this was reality, that Thanos was dead, that he was truly, truly alive.

He supposed that perhaps if he tried again to remain awake again, it would end much the same as it did last time. 

Loki remembered when he was younger, less damaged and more naive, when he had nightmares, he had crawled into Thor’s bed and heard his breathing, deep and thunderous, and he had been so sure that the monsters of his dreams would cower in fear. And when that had failed, he had kept himself busy. 

He remembered Frigga, holding his hands late at night, whispering encouragement as his magic sparked around him. He remembered the sounds of his knives hitting wooden targets in the lonely, early hours of the morning. Perhaps he could try again.

Loki took the short walk to the indoor training area. A chill wind blew through the town, taking billows of snow with it. The snow almost seemed almost softer here, as if the night sky took the ice of Jotunheim and brushed a hand over it, melted and refroze it into something mellowed, more delicate. Perhaps it was weaker, but there lay a sense of beauty in Midgard’s snow. The harsh ice of Jotunheim was seemingly brought to a point where the cold would never kill and the frost could never hurt quite as badly.

The training facilities of New Asgard were small and modern, white linoleum hallways leading away from the main corridor and into smaller, more specialized rooms. In the middle of the main corridor lay an open space for sparring, with dummies lining one wall. The side across from the dummies led into a room filled with weapons, dulled for safety. The upstairs floors held much of the same types of rooms, with extra spaces for research and other types of exercise scattered about.

Loki walked in, taking his knives from a pocket dimension. He never used the facility’s weapons, preferring to use his own. They were balanced for him and him alone, and they were spelled as to never hurt him. But it was more than that. Loki’s knives were his as Mjolnir had been Thor’s.

He still remembered his mother’s words as she gave him them. Knives are the weapons of the clever. They are the weapons of those who know the exact place for one to strike.

How much of his life was spent in memory? Loki didn’t know.

He chose a room at random, only to find someone else there.

Valkyrie turned around to face him. She was in full armor, holding her sword in one hand. Her hair was tied out of her face, and her chest was heaving. The dummies set around her had been torn to shreds.

She raised an eyebrow at him. “Bit late, isn’t it?”

Loki leaned back, against the wall next to the door. “Speak for yourself. I’m not the only one up.”

Val lowered the sword and leaned on it. Studied him, eyes lingering on his face. Loki wondered how he looked. Not particularly good, he assumed, what with him not eating much and barely sleeping.

She must have seen something in his face, must have seen whatever Thor had seen weeks ago, because she said, “What were you planning on doing, anyway? It’s two in the fucking morning.” 

Loki straightened and began to turn. He said, “It doesn’t matter.”

Loki saw her worry, or pity, or whatever it was that made her keep an eye on him. She knew as well as he did what had happened in the library. She had seen too far.

Loki started to leave, but not before Val said, “This is about Thanos, isn’t it?”

He couldn’t stop himself from flinching as she said the name.

His voice was cold, ragged. “It’s none of your concern.”

And he practically ran out of the room.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello and welcome to chapter two. Yes I am still writing this yes I am still alive no I have not started the next chapter of Ripples of Space and Time. So here’s me, being me, randomly switching the POV. Don’t worry we’ll be back to Loki and all his problems in a minute, but here’s a random Val POV because inconsistency!!! Yayyyy  
>   
> Anyway this is going to take a while because it’s me writing we’re talking about and also school’s starting to pick up again so I may not post for a while. But I promise that I _have_ plotted everything out (barring chapter six).  
>   
> Ummmmmmm what else? Oh right here’s my [tumblr](https://eluvion.tumblr.com/) if you want but it’s full of killjoy/mcr stuff right now because hyperfixation (I may write more killjoyverse fanfiction but I honestly don’t know).  
>   
> Anyway enjoy the fic =)

To be honest, Valkyrie didn’t care about the imports and exports of New Asgard, but she supposed that they mattered to the survival of the people. But she still didn’t like political meetings. She understood, somewhere, that it was because it wasn’t her nature to be deceitful or clever. She wasn’t good at weaving half-truths together and she certainly wasn’t the type of person to make a plan that paid off in the long run.

But Thor was even worse at this than she was. At least _she_ could tell a lie.

She was only halfway through the meeting, and already Thor looked half-asleep, the ambassador sent from Norway still looked pissed, and she was really regretting being sober. 

Not that she had a choice in the matter. After all, all the alcohol left that would have any effect on her was either already finished or destroyed. A shame, that. The Grandmaster had his faults, but at least his drinks were not as painfully subpar as Midgard’s were.

But she knew that Loki had been good at this sort of thing. Politics. Half-truths. Lies woven with an air of truth and traps made from nothing but words and phrases.

She also knew that Loki was… delicate. He was balancing everything on the edge of a knife, and sooner or later, it would all fall apart. _He_ would fall apart. Valkyrie barely knew the guy, and she could see that he was two steps from death.

He had certainly seemed like that in the library.

And there was the fact that he clearly didn’t trust her. Of course, she didn’t exactly trust him, either, but that didn’t matter. It wasn’t as if he could betray them. Loki was a fucking mess, and anyone who spent five minutes with the guy knew that.

Val still didn’t know how to feel about his… collapse in the library. She had panicked, true, after he had fallen, clawing at his own throat. It wasn’t that that had panicked her. She had seen the losing war, she had run from so many battles, she had seen all the one she loved fall to Hela. She had lost so many. So much.

That was the look in Loki’s eyes. The look of someone who was seeing everything disappear in front of them. Valkyrie knew that look. She fucking knew it.

She wondered, distantly, how far gone he was. She wondered if _Thor_ knew how far he was.

Fuck. 

Thor, knowing Loki and his secrets, didn’t know about whatever Loki was dealing with last night. Norns, she was going to have to tell Thor.

* * *

“We need to talk about Loki,” Val said, blunt.

It was after the trade meeting, where just about nothing was resolved and the state of New Asgard remained as up in the air as it had always been. They were, essentially, at the same place they had been for the last three months. Valkyrie was frustrated, to say the least.

Thor was, too. He so clearly wanted this to work, wanted whatever peace he could give to Asgard, wanted to finally have something stable. 

Loki certainly wasn’t stable. 

And Thor certainly knew that. Which was why, Val guessed, he was absolutely freaking the _fuck_ out.

Thor looked like a disaster, too. But at least he had stopped drinking.

“What happened?” Thor said, trepidation coating his voice.

“He’s fine. Well, as fine as _Loki_ can be,” she said in her most calming voice possible. Which, admittedly, wasn’t very calming.

“What. Happened?” Thor said, less of a question and more of a command.

“It’s not bad, Thor. He’s started wandering again. I was in the weapons facility last night after the meeting, and I saw him there.”

“With Loki, if it’s not bad, it will get bad.”

Val supposed that was true. 

He was really starting to look panicked. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know. He sped out of the room too quickly for me to catch him. And before you ask, no, Thor, I am not searching the whole of New Asgard _again_.” She shrugged. “Besides, he probably learned to hide better since the last time.”

Maybe it was cruel to tell Thor this in such a matter-of-fact way. But he needed truth right now. Hard, fair truth. It was what Valkyrie always had and what she would always give.

They would never find Loki if they searched the city for him. They had to wait for him to come to them. 

And Loki _was_ hiding. She knew that, and she knew what that felt like more than anyone. She had hidden for thousands of years.

And maybe that was what Loki had always done—hide from the forces that could rip him to pieces if he ever showed his face. And she remembered, on the ship, him staying behind. Loki taking the long-awaited blow, the fate that was coming for him, no matter how far he ran. Facing Thanos killed him. And it broke something in him.

She could see that. Takes one to know one, after all.

Valkyrie looked Thor dead in the eyes. “We’ll just have to wait for him to come to us.”

“And if he doesn’t come?”

She sighed and rubbed her eyes. She was far too sober for this. “We’ll give him a few days. Then we go after him, okay?”

Something flashed across Thor’s face. “Fine.”


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes it has been like half a year. Yes I am still writing this fic. Don’t judge me I got distracted. Also,,, I wrote most of this while sleep-deprived and dying, so it may be a bit OOC and it is _all_ introspection. So ummm that’s fun :))  
>   
> Here’s my [tumblr](https://nightwing-hunter.tumblr.com/) if you want to talk/ask questions/do whatever.

The world moved too quickly and too slowly at once. Time stretched and coiled around Loki, and it was as if he was watching his body from afar, watching himself sink into the cold, dark ocean that was his own mind. 

Cold, cold, always  _ cold _ . The press of open space, too close and too vast, against his bare skin. The ice leaching warmth from his bleeding wound, and the sincere thought that  _ he was going to die. _ That was what he had thought, wasn’t it, when he had let go of Mjolnir, when he had seen the Void stretch in front of him, when he had felt himself sink into the open arms of death. He was cold, and cold was him, and perhaps, at some point, it was simply a part of his ancestry, but now, he was achingly intimate with the feeling of death’s icy fingers snaking through his spine and freezing his veins, and there was  _ nothing _ else, nothing but the cold and the claws digging in and  _ down  _ and ripping at his very foundations.

He used to fight that with a vengeance, but Thanos was  _ dead _ . He was dead, and Loki had no one to run from, nothing he should fear, no reason to check over his shoulder every step. 

But the memories haunted. They haunted and cut and  _ broke _ , the way a predator breaks its prey, waiting and watching, until he let down his defences. They gathered strength and stretched fanged smiles when he stepped or saw or heard wrong, and then he was back in the Void, or with Thanos, or stepping towards death, and he was  _ so very afraid _ .

And now he could almost  _ feel _ the memories breathing down his neck, waiting and waiting and  _ waiting _ . 

He was on the roof of the house that he, Thor, Val, and Heimdal shared. He remembered, when Thor brought him there, seeing, for the first time, just how hauntingly small New Asgard was. At first, he decided to live in his own home, but it stayed bare and lonely, and after a few days, he stayed with Thor more often than he stayed at his own house. At some point, he gave it to a family who had just been pulled back from death.

Val was there for practical purposes. She shared the throne with Thor, now, and despite her bluntness, she was well practiced in politics. At some point, he had wanted her place. He wanted to be important, wanted to rule as well as he could, because he was  _ good.  _ He was good at setting and seeing traps, good at weeding out traitors, good at seeing plots years before they came to fruition. But his place here was tenuous.

The rest of Midgard was letting him stay here as a  _ thank you  _ to Thor. No one wanted to anger him, not so soon after everything happened. So they let Loki stay. 

He was sure that if he showed his face in politics that he would be less than welcome. The only reason he was allowed here in the first place was because Midgard couldn’t take another war. 

To be fair, Loki wasn’t sure that  _ he _ could take another war. It felt, sometimes, as if he was nothing but a collection of scars, a menagerie of molds from hands that were not his own, forming and reforming his mind and body at will, keeping ahold of him like clay, keeping him pliant and flexible until he fell apart in foreign hands. Perhaps he had already broken, broken into sharp, shattering pieces from death’s hand. The war was over, and it had left him crushed too many times. 

He wondered, distantly, what Frigga would say. Would she think him still moldable, yet to be unbroken and uncrushed? Or perhaps she would twist his narrative, twist his metaphor into something new. Perhaps she would say that he was not reformed, not by death at least, and that death would be the final oven, that he was redeemed,  _ better _ . No, that would just be his wishful thinking. She would more likely tell him that hands can build up clay as well as tear it down, that he should come forward, help Thor retain peace of mind. 

He knew that Valkyrie had told Thor. He didn’t know what the conversation was like, but he could see, from the shadows, Thor’s eye searching up and down the streets of the city. Valkyrie was less obvious about it. She kept a hawk’s gaze on the town, scouring faces with the calm of a hunter. They were a good pair to lead New Asgard, with strong ideals and a stronger front. 

There was a time that Loki wanted to be there, wanted the power, the recognition, the  _ love _ that came with being a leader. But that never happened. It never happened because his vision of leadership was always wrong, stilted. It was under the influence of  _ I just want someone to care _ . To care about him, and not because he was Thor’s brother. 

Now, after everything, Loki wasn’t sure that he wanted anything at all. He was so Norns-damned  _ tired _ .

But he thought, again, about Frigga, about that desperate light in Thor’s eye as he searched the town, and the way Valkyrie’s stare slid up and down every figure they passed on the street. 

And Loki remembered the words he himself had told Thor, in the aftermath of trying not to sleep and the fever dreams that followed.  _ I  _ wish _ I could trust you _ . 

_ Trust, _ Loki thought wryly.  _ Dammit _ . 

Because trust had to be built from  _ something _ . A step. That was what he had to do. Take a step to trust, take a step to  _ Thor _ , let the bridge be rebuilt beneath their feet. 

Loki had lost so much. So many. Perhaps he could rebuild  _ something _ . 

Still, dread pooled in his stomach, tightening something within him. He didn’t want to ask for anything, didn’t want to be so Norns-damned  _ weak _ . But he was crumbling, or perhaps he was shattering, and he  _ needed _ someone to be there. 

And Thor would. He would be there, because when Loki wasn’t there, Thor had broken, or gotten very near to it. Thor wouldn’t risk breaking like that again, and perhaps he wouldn’t risk Loki doing anything drastic. 

Loki sighed. Put his face in his hands and brushed his hair back. He would have to be the first to set a new foundation between himself and Thor, and Loki  _ hated  _ that. 

He climbed off of the roof, and, keeping his head ducked, so that none of the people passing by the house would see him. He wove an illusion of invisibility over himself, took the delicate threads of perception and twisted them in just the right way. The trick to illusions is not to twist something new over oneself, but to create what is expected. A blank wall. A curtain of space. A weapon hiding in one hand but not the other.

Perhaps that was what he had been doing all of these years—putting what was expected into the world. He was the neglected prince. The vindictive subject. The traitorous brother. 

And he painted these layers, wove together threads and pushed so many pieces into place that he had no idea who  _ he  _ was anymore. Too many coats of paint. Too many hands changing him. And now  _ this  _ was what was left.

A shadow, not unlike the one he was before. But a different shade this time, one content to stay out of the spotlight, one whose only goal for so long— _ survival _ —had suddenly and irrevocably changed to  _ living _ . Because the thing is, after a while, survival was  _ easy _ . It was so easy to talk his way out of a problem, to fight, tooth and nail and claw, against every hand that touched him, to see that no one would betray him if he held no one close. Survival was fucking  _ easy _ , but living was  _ different _ . He had space to breathe, no darkness looming over him, no knife inches from his jugular. There laid a void within him that he had no idea how to fill. 

Loki was  _ safe _ , but he had no idea how to work with that. The last time he had felt safe was over a decade before, but it felt like centuries ago. 

_ A step _ , Frigga’s voice said in his head, calm and placating.  _ A journey begins with a single step.  _

So, against his better judgment, Loki knocked on Thor’s door and dropped the illusion that he had woven around himself. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for putting up with my bullshit!! I won't give any promises about when I'll put out the next chapter, but I _swear_ I'm going to finish this fic. In the meantime, maybe?? check out??? my [tumblr](https://eluvion.tumblr.com/)???


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi y'all! So!! Recent developments: I know I said I would finish this, but I'm not sure if I will. I'm kind of out of the fandom at the moment, and unless the Loki show gets me re-invested, I'll probably leave this here. I honestly don't know if I'll get back to this, and even though I have a lot of it plotted, I don't know if I can force myself back into it. I'm leaving this on my account, and I'm leaving this open, but just know that I am unsure whether or not I'll get back to it. I'm so sorry to leave you all like this.  
>   
> However, I am writing for new fandoms, and from now on, I'm going to try to finish writing series and works before posting them. Thank you all if you did read this <33

Valkyrie was so done with politics. It had been a  _ long _ afternoon, what with her half searching for Loki, keeping the political delegates of at least seven other countries and four other worlds,  _ and  _ having to keep Thor calm enough that he could work with the delegates. Given that Earth held the Avengers, which had proven to be the most powerful group in all of the galaxy, the other worlds hurried to make peace treaties, as well as trade agreements. They still had yet to agree on any  _ laws _ in those treaties, as every time she or Thor thought they were airtight, they saw another flaw, another wrinkle or loophole, and they had to start the meeting all over again.

Needless to say, Val was fucking stressed. Loki hadn’t shown up either, and she could  _ see _ that Thor was just about ready to jump out of his skin. 

Even though Val had  _ said _ that Loki would come to them if he needed them, and that surely he had grown, and maybe, just fucking  _ maybe, _ he would be a tad less self destructive, she wasn’t sure. Most of that was to placate Thor, and now that they had rescheduled the next peace meeting for next week, she was free to let Loki settle in her thoughts. 

She still didn’t like the guy. He was shifty, and something about him always felt too much like any second, he would have a knife in her back and a new trap laid. But she saw that Thor cared. She saw that Heimdal cared. And just because she didn’t like him didn’t mean that she didn’t  _ care  _ about him. So she was just about as stressed as most people who knew about him were.

Besides, Val didn’t want it on her and her advice if he  _ did _ end up stabbing them in the back.

She was surprised, though, when he knocked on the door and opened it, not even bothering to wait for someone to come. 

She was not surprised at just how fucking  _ dead _ he looked. It was as if a storm had swept through him. Shadows stained his eyes, and something about him looked  _ starved _ , though she couldn’t tell if Loki hadn’t been eating or if it was the lack of sleep warping his body. Knowing him, it was probably both. Honestly, Loki looked even worse than he had when he had passed out right in front of her. 

At this point, though, Val was honestly too tired for subtlety. “So you’re alive then.”

Thor gave her a dirty look. Okay, maybe that was a  _ little _ too blunt, but it had been a long day.

Loki didn’t react. He just raised a brow and said, “Were you expecting otherwise?”

“No,” she said. “You’re the survivalist type. Just worried that you would disappear on us again.”

Thor looked two feet from straight up punching her in the face, and Val could see every emotion sketched on his face, clear as day. Thor was so blatant about his emotions that it  _ hurt.  _ Val found that Thor’s emotions were like drumbeats—clear and direct, setting the tone. When he’s happy, he’s happy; when he’s sad, he’s sad; and when he’s angry, he’s  _ fucking  _ angry. 

Loki’s feelings were like the strings, the violins hiding under the louder instruments. There, and present, but hidden. They were the lining of the coat, almost imperceptible unless she was looking for them. He wore a thousand masks, and he held a thousand walls between himself and any others, but even Val could see through his cracks. 

Thor looked like he was about to say something astronomically stupid, so Val butted in. “You good, Lackey? You look… well I’ll be honest, you look like shit.”

Okay, so maybe that was a shitty thing to say, but it certainly wasn’t as bad at whatever Thor was about to say.

Loki didn’t even put up a fight. He just sighed, and he stared her in the eye. Norns, he looked—well, she hated thinking it, but something in his eyes looked fucking  _ dead. _ Or maybe somewhere near there. 

“Must you be here?” Loki asked. 

“You’re lucky I was there earlier.”

He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. “Was I?” 

She shrugged. “Well, yeah. You were.”

Val could push. She could push and push, because she  _ knew _ that Loki was only trying to rile her up. It could be fucking fun if she really wanted to. But she knew better than that. Loki was as fragile as glass, and no doubt, if she put too much pressure on him, he would shatter, which would hurt  _ anyone  _ involved. 

And the thing about Loki was that if you battered at his walls enough, he had two reactions, and both of them were not what you wanted. He would either shut you out completely, destroy all the progress you had made, or, alternatively, you would hit something too sore, he would be hurt, and  _ then  _ he would shut you out. 

And yet. 

And yet Thor managed to always do just that. He could use brute force. He could get Loki to talk. He could get through Loki’s walls. 

Maybe it was a family thing. Well, something of a family thing. She didn’t think that  _ Odin _ was any good around someone like Loki, but from what she’d heard, the late queen was better with him. And Thor. Thor knew him in a way that she could never.

And the thing about Val was that even if she gave people shit, she knew when something was private. 

She ran a hand down her hair. “I’ll go. Thor, we have another meeting two hours from now. I’ll see you there.”

She shot a look at Thor, and he could read it, clear as day.  _ Don’t fuck this up. _

Thor might be unique in his way that he got under Loki’s masks and walls, but he was still a disaster. 

She closed the door behind her, hoping to the Norns that this would turn out okay.


End file.
